There’s something to talk about: Dennys Reyes

Sorry other blog. I’ve neglected you. 

The Cardinals threw a bunch of crud on the wall, and none of it stuck. So they decided to sign a real brand name, bona fide LOOGY in Dennys Reyes.  Well alright. The deal is apparently for 2 years and $3M. 

The past three seasons Reyes has posted tRA+’s of 158, 106 and 107. You read the first one right. In his first season as a Twin, he was lights out. He was 2 WAR in 2006, then .4 and .6 last season, and projects to be .6 WAR again, worth a fair market value of $3M. So it’s a decent enough bargain.

Like many a LOOGY, he’s a sinker/slider pitcher. According to his Pitch F/X card at Kalk’s, his sinker comes in at 91 MPH while his slider is 85MPH. Naturally, he throws the slider to lefties nearly 50% of the time. His O-Swing% is 30.9% and batters make contact with those pitches just 40.6% of the time. He’s held LHB in check last year, to the tune of a  .202/.250/.257 line. 

TLR now has his precious two veteran lefties and everyone’s happy. Well, everyone but Royce Ring, Charlie Manning and Ian Ostlund. They’ll be disgruntled and in camp until Mexico (and Reyes) eventually gets eliminated from the WBC.

CHONE says 83 wins

Good for 2nd place. Well, that stinks. I still think they can do better than that projection, but it’s gonna take a healthy Chris Carpenter and a lot of other breaks to hit 90 wins.

 Beware of the…Reds? Astros in the basement!

Memo to Pineiro: You stink, get over it.

So Joel Pineiro is all in a huff about not being included in Puerto Rico’s three man rotation for the WBC. Instead of sucking it up and pitching out of the bullpen for his homeland, he is taking his ball and going home. Adding to the drama, Jose Oquendo is PR’s manager.

“I was very disappointed, very heartbroken. I felt disrespected,” Pineiro said prior to this morning’s workout at Roger Dean Stadium. “Everybody knows that there have been only two pitchers in Puerto Rico the past 8-10 years who have been consistent starters, Javier Vazquez and myself. To hear that from [Oquendo], it was such a setback. I’m very disappointed. I can’t believe I’m talking to you guys about this.”

Whoa,buddy. First of all, I’m not sure there is such a thing as a consistent starter from Puerto Rico considering who made the team in your stead. Secondly, the only thing consistent about  the last 5 years of Joel Pineiro is that he’s been one of the worst starters in all of baseball.  

tRA*

Sanchez: 2008 4.52, 2007 4.95.

Snell: 08 5.58, 07 4.37. 

Pineiro: 08 5.24, 07 4.86, 06 6.14

As I said, I’m not sure there is such a thing as a consistent SP from Puerto Rico, but I’d rather take my chances with Jonathan Sanchez and Ian Snell, too.

I’ve been defending the front office

The Cardinals have stuck with Rick Ankiel through thick and through thin, but now they’re taking him to arbitration?

According to Fangraphs, Ankiel’s win values the past two seasons have been $4.3 and $8.7M.  His CHONE projection calls for 1.4 WAR, worth $6.2M on the free agent market, something Ankiel is only a year away from.

The names in his similarity scores are a lot of boom then bust types, do the Cardinals believe that is what will become of Ankiel? Maybe I’m being a homer, but I don’t really think Ankiel is going to flame out as fast as say, Jason Lane. Hey, it’s not like they are using the extra payroll on a free agent. He’s going to be a bargain no matter how it shakes out, but they should’ve just paid the man and spared the hurt feelings.

PECOTA Projected Standings

80-82.

3rd place. Bleh. I think they’ll do better than that, but …. bleh.

Kennedy gets the heave ho

I’m trying to cut down on the blogging habit for a while, but this certainly came as news and is worth commenting on.

So before securing a replacement for Adam Kennedy, the team let him go? Weird. Very weird. I thought the org and the player kissed and made up and everyone was happy. Apparently Tony was not. The relevant question now is: Who wins the job? You would think the club would look outside with several good candidates out there, but Goold says they’ll look internally.

Here are the in-house candidates by their CHONE projections:

• Joe Thurston – .322 wOBA. I got nothing on his defense, but in his last three minor league seasons he was +8, -4, -5 per 150 games.
• Brendan Ryan – .308 wOBA- minus 4 on defense.
• Brian Barden – .310 wOBA, neutral on defense.
• Jarrett Hoffpauir – .324 wOBA, last three seasons in minors -9, 0, -15.
• Skip Schumaker – .328 wOBA, glove???

I had Kennedy for .8 WAR but if he replicated his 2008 campaign in which he was a + 10 defender, he’d be at 1.2 WAR. Running each player through the spreadsheet and giving the starter 500 PA’s I get:

Thurston: .8 WAR
Ryan: .1 WAR
Barden .5 WAR
Hoffpauir .4 WAR
Skip .7 WAR, who really knows with the glove. I put him down as a -8 defender, and I think I am being nice.

Thurston projects to be every bit as good as Kennedy, if you can call that good. The bottom line is ditching Kennedy is no huge loss. If Skip can prove us wrong and be serviceable at 2B, it could clear the way for Colby.

Jerry Crasnick reported last week that the Cardinals phoned Ray Durham to see if he’d be interested in backing up Kennedy but nothing really happened. Hopefully Mo calls again. Eric Seidman of Fangraphs earlier today made a great case for Durham. I know the Cardinals would rather not eat AK’s salary and pay for another 2B, but Durham could probably be had for cheap. I think he’d look good batting 2nd, 7th or maybe even leading off if he can come close to posting another .380 on base%.

Torn Sheets

It all makes sense now.  Let’s face it, and if you haven’t known this for a long time now you’re only fooling yourself: there are no other moves to be made.

See ya Springer

It looks like Russ Springer is going to sign a one year deal with the A’s, reportedly for 1 year at $3M. MLB.com says Springer will likely setup for “dual closers” Brad Ziegler and Joey Devine. I wasn’t aware Oakland was going with a two-headed closer tandem, but regardless, bully for Springer.

Springer was a pretty pleasant surprise the two seasons that he was a Cardinal. After posting tRA’s of 3.48 and 4.41 in 2005 and 2006 with the Astros, Springer showed a lot of improvement while in St. Louis, putting up tRA’s of 2.63 and 3.30. Oddly enough, these marked improvements came between ripe old ages of 38-39.

Despite all of his improvements, Springer was under appreciated by the Cardinals. For one, they didn’t offer him arbitration and showed no interest in bringing him back. That part I can understand a little, after all, he did turn 40 and the Cardinals have no shortage of options when it comes to right-handed relief. I get the front office’s stance towards Springer, but I don’t understand La Russa’s.

I say that because Springer was the best reliever the Cardinals had two years running, but despite that, TLR never really seemed to trust him in the high leverage situations. Springer led Cardinal relievers in WPA/LI two seasons in a row, 1.65 in 2007 and 1.01 last season, yet his average leverage index was .78 and 1.05 the past two seasons. To put that into context, Ryan Franklin had a WPA/LI of .03 last season and his average LI was 1.7. McClellan had a WPA/LI of .14 and his leverage index was 1.58. Jason Isringhausen’s LI was 1.5 and his WPL/LI was a dismal -.8. Perhaps more damning is how Randy Flores had average LI’s of 1.34 in ‘08 and .94 in ‘07. How in the world could anyone trust Randy Flores more than Russ Springer? How could you trust anyone less than Randy Flores is probably the better question.

While La Russa pitched him more in higher leverage situations last season, he gave Ryan Franklin and Jason Isringhausen opportunity after opportunity and they blew something around 8 bazillion saves and it cost the Cardinals a chance at playing in October. La Russa had Springer all along and yet he never gave him one save opportunity.

Now Springer’s headed to Oakland and it looks like he’ll be given more of a chance to pitch in key situations. Guesstimating some, Springer should post around a 3.50 ERA over 60 innings. The average LI for a set up man is 1.3. So that makes him project to be worth 1.3 WAR, worth about $5.8 M. That would be the high end of his worth, but I think it’s at least realistic considering his new home ballpark. On the low end, let’s say he regresses and gives the A’s a 3.80 ERA and lower his leverage to 1, then he’s worth .6 WAR or $3.3 M, which is still a little less what they are paying him.

Leave it to the A’s to know a decent bargain when they see one.

PAH9 Moved

After a brief stay here at WordPress, I’ve packed up and moved over to MVN.  Update your bookmarks and RSS feeds according, yes, that means all seven of you.

Glaus half full or half empty?

Yesterday, out of the blue, we learned that Troy Glaus underwent surgery to repair a torn muscle near his right shoulder and could miss 5 weeks or more of the season. That sucks and certainly calls into question “why now?”, but there’s not much that can be done about it now. So can the Cards weather this? I think so.

First of all, let me say there’s not a good enough reason to bring up Brett Wallace right now. If there were no other viable 3B options in house, then maybe, but there’s no reason to start the Walrus’s service time unless you plan on keeping him up in the big leagues for good. Let the big guy work on his defense in the minors where it doesn’t matter and then install him permanently as the regular 3B next season after Glaus walks. 

That brings us to David Freese. Why? Because he has little left to prove in AAA and will turn 26 early in the season. He’s an able defender and a decent hitter.  Freese’s CHONE projection calls for a .335 wOBA, a far cry from Glaus’ .372, but it’s respectable enough. I knocked down Glaus’ plate appearances to 500 and give 155 of them to Freese and it knocks the team off 3 runs. I also knocked Glaus’ projected .372 wOBA to .365, considering he may start slow coming back.  You can see the results here. 

The short of it is the Cardinals as they stood before this news had 88 win talent. Minus some Glaus, plus some Freese, the result is 87.4 wins. In other words, if Freese does play and plays as projected it costs the Cardinals only 6 runs. Not good, but certainly bearable. 

Now if La Russa mismanages the roster (and he very well could, knowing Tony) and plays a lot of Brendan Ryan at 3B, that could cost the Cardinals another 4-6 runs. Here’s hoping Freese has a strong showing in spring training and that he lives up to his prospect billing as a Cardinal rookie.

The bottom line is having Glaus out of the lineup for a month isn’t going to break the season. Barring a big move, the season right isn’t riding on Troy’s health so much as it is on Carpenter’s.